First Week Reflection: Initiating Flipped Mastery

The first week has come and gone. I'm exhausted! My students are learning the process of flipped mastery learning and I am trying to ride the waves while maintaining my optimism. It is not an easy task.

To better understand my reflection you need to be aware of how I have structured things.  Students have a basic work flow; 

Watch video

Summarize by taking notes (I give them guided notes to help)

Questions submission (answer questions about the content online)

Practice what they've learned and correct it with answer key, fix mistakes

Check in with me (basically check to see if notes & practice are done authentically)

Quiz over the concept (must retake if score less than 70%)

We have been modeling watching videos and taking notes in class. Many soon realized that they would rather watch the videos in their own learning space so that they can do so at a pace that works for them. This helped to move them to that goal by the end of the week. Starting next week, viewing content will be done in the individual student work space either at home or in class on their personal device or one of my classroom netbooks.  

By the end of the week students were having discussions about math and working together to understand. For the most part. I am quickly identifying students who are disengaged, mostly because of a lack of understanding of basic math. This is an Algebra 1 class and we start with a review of fractions. Maybe this isn't the best idea as most students (and adults) struggle with fractions. However, we find that the inability to do fractions limits students ability to do more complex work throughout the year. So we start there. 

The check in process is meant to be a way for me to quickly ascertain students' needs. I struggle with it because I find that there is so little of me to go around that I fly through the quick conversation because I'm trying to get to everyone. I'm not sure how to rectify this but I don't want to give up on it quite yet. 

I give students choice in the practice assignments. They choose the level of difficulty and have other problems that they must do. Students are still getting the hang of it but they seem to appreciate having options. I have started to teach some students who are severely struggling to focus on the more basic problems to help lessen their frustration and support them in acquiring some progress. 

What is frustrating me most is that I have uncovered students cheating on the concept quizzes. I have multiple versions of the daily quiz (which has questions for every concept) and have found students putting answers to a version of the quiz that was used previously. This means they are taking other students quizzes and copying the answers. Unfortunately, I have been so focused on students learning the process of class that I have not been teaching them to work that process with integrity. That will be our discussion and focus for next week. 

I think this is evidence if how struggling students have learned to "play school" in a traditional system. Because students have not been held accountable for taking responsibility for their understanding they copied and cheated (or were just passed on due to social promotion) to move through grades.  Now I'm asking them to show they understand and they fall back on old habits or try to shut down. 

Class time is very chaotic as I try to reach every student. I feel like many are falling through the cracks because I just haven't been able to meet their needs.  Yet. It's early. But there is one thing that has become very evident to me. The traditional way is so wrong for kids! I'm not saying the aren't amazing teachers who do great things in a traditional classroom. But as I watch what is happening in my classroom I think about how it would be different for my students if this were a traditional classroom. My go-getters would be sitting there bored out of their minds instead of 3-4 concepts ahead of the others. My strugglers would be watching content fly by them with no level of understanding, broken and disengaged. Instead, even though they are still on the first concept of the first unit, they are right where they need to be. Still learning. Slowly. Ever so slowly.

As I work through the pitfalls and hurdles I feel the fear creeping in. It is a constant battle every day to remain positive and optimistic. To not get angry that students aren't taking advantage of the huge opportunities I'm trying to give them to finally learn a subject that has remained foreign to them for many years. And even though I am surrounded by colleagues and administrators who are supportive I am left feeling lonely and isolated. It's hard trying something new. But my fear has nothing to do with me.  I'm not fearful of trying something new and having it not work. If it doesn't I will learn and move on. I'm not afraid to make a mistake. Tomas Edison failed many times before succeeding with his many inventions. I'm not afraid of failing for me. I'm afraid of failing my students.

They are why I do this. Why I work so hard. Why I'm trying something new. Something I know will work if I just figure how. I guess to fall back on my optimism I must remind myself it is a journey. This week was one of many. Maybe it's one of the failures. Maybe there were some successes. Either way it is one small step of a long journey to help kids truly learn. Great things are not accomplished without great sacrifice, hard work, unwavering determination and a good dose of faith. 

So I guess, once again, it's time to let go of the fear.